The challenge of sustainable
production

Global fish harvests reached a record high in
1997 - with capture fisheries and aquaculture
together producing 122 million tonnes of fish. This
was primarily because of increases in aquaculture
production - which grew substantially in from 1994
to 1997 - while capture fisheries production
figures only climbed slightly. Today, almost
one-third of all the aquatic food that we eat is
farmed.

Madagascar:
shrimp fishing boats waiting for fishing
to reopen after a closed season to protect
the fryFAO/17417/H.
Wagner

A jump in the per caput availability of fish for
people to eat, from 14.3 kg in 1994 to 15.7 kg in
1997, was almost entirely the result of reported
production increases in mainland China. If the
Chinese figures are excluded, the average food fish
supply for 1997 is 13.3 kg, close to levels in the
early 1990s, but somewhat less than those of the
1980s.

Widespread unsustainable fishing practices have
left capture fisheries with a shrinking resource
base which translates into a shrinking contribution
to food security. FAO estimates that 11 of the
world's 15 major fishing areas and 69 percent of
the world's major fish species are in decline and
in need of urgent management. Catches of Atlantic
cod, for example, plummeted by 69 percent between
1968 and 1992. West Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks
dropped by more than 80 percent between 1970 and
1993.

Overall, the state of exploitation of the main
fish stocks (in fisheries for which assessment
information is available) has remained more or less
unchanged since the early 1990s. Recent reviews
tend to confirm that, among the major fish stocks
for which information is available, an estimated 44
percent are fully exploited and are therefore
producing catches that have reached or are very
close to their maximum limit, with no room expected
for further expansion. About 16 percent are
overfished and likewise leave no room for
expansion. Moreover, there is an increasing
likelihood that catches might decrease if remedial
action is not undertaken to reduce or suppress
overfishing.

As valuable fish stocks become overfished and
harvests shrink, fishers turn to species of lower
value. Mid-Atlantic fishers catching bluefin tuna
in the 1960s were targeting swordfish a decade
later, and by the mid 1980s they had switched to
yellowfin tuna.

The challenge now is to keep fish production on
the rise to meet the increasing protein needs of a
growing global population, while at the same time
allowing overfished populations to recover and
preventing other species joining the list of the
overfished. It is a major challenge.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food
production sector for the last decade, and there is
significant potential for continued expansion and
growth of aquaculture and culture-based fisheries.
It has been proven that aquaculture and inland
fisheries have played and will continue to play an
important role in human nutrition and poverty
alleviation in many rural areas through integrated
aquaculture-agriculture farming systems and
integrated utilization of small and medium-size
water bodies. Aquaculture is also facing the
challenge of sustainable development. To reduce the
environmental impacts of aquaculture development as
well as avoid impacts on aquaculture caused by
non-aquaculture activities, both a result of poor
management, further efforts are needed to improve
resources use and appropriate environmental
management. . However, extensive and semi-intensive
practices are likely to continue to be the most
important for some time.